


Reflections

by Khantael



Category: Warchild Series - Karin Lowachee
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:40:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28136337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khantael/pseuds/Khantael
Summary: Some things are better left unspoken.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Reflections

**Author's Note:**

  * For [derogatory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/derogatory/gifts).



> 2020, what a year.  
> I hope this brings some Yuletide cheer.

Although we’ve mostly got used to the room-sharing arrangement, awakening from our sleepshift is still an oddly awkward affair. Jos is always reluctant to be in close proximity to others, but before the hatch of sleep is fully closed even accidentally brushing up against him is likely to get a knife to your throat before either of us even realises. I don’t get up easy either, and on shifts when he’s aware before I am, I see his nondescript expression trying to hide a knowing look in his eyes, and for a moment I _hate_. Not Jos, not really, just the situation, and the fact he thinks he knows what’s going on in my head, which memories stir up outta the dark and entangle themselves through my dreams until there’s nothing left but memory.

I remember waking on a ship, scared outta my mind, and hearing a hum of drives that were becoming unpleasantly familiar. The idea of anything becoming routine ( _familiar_ ) that wasn’t _Mukudori_ was worrying enough on its own, but I sat in a room filled with kids younger than me, having come to the slow dawning realisation that I was their only protection, and quietly wishing I had my own. I’d think of Shane and my parents, and then I’d try and think of something else, as the memory that blossomed into my mind was the last view I’d seen of them that never quite faded from my vision, eyes closed or not, their bodies still and unmoving and a painting of red and black.

(And then part of me would think, in hysteria, “I can fight, I can take ‘em by surprise, they think I’m just a kid. We can run outta here and, and…” I was twelve, you understand. I was dumb. I didn’t think about where we might be able to run to, stuck with nothing but enemies in the middle of space. I didn’t know that “kid” ain't a word that has any meaning to pirates, or any that’s worth thinking of. I didn’t know a lotta things, but my traitorous mouth probably saved my life, and got me hit for that before I tried anything stupid. Big and strong on _Mukudori_ didn't mean nothing in a den of pirates.)

Pain wracked through my body, and exhaustion had rendered me weak. I was ashamed at my failure to be useful, that even though _Mukudori_ did drills loadsa times for what we should do if we ever came under attack, that it had never come up in any scenario what might happen if we _didn’_ t fend off the invaders, if the only person around to make decisions was a twelve-year-old who had never been all that interested in listening to all the ins-and-outs of safety procedures as we’ll just kick their ass, right? I couldn’t tolerate nobody near me no more, and I could read the hurt in the voices of the others, but I’d just shut my eyes and wish myself away. If I could hear them, they were okay, and I didn’t have to be “here”. But sleeping was a step too far; then I wouldn’t know if anybody was approaching me, either friend or foe.

I musta failed in even that, though, as someone managed to actually get close enough to me to grab my arm. Their strong grasp around my arm, as well as the large fingers digging into it and leaving crescent-shaped indents, told me that this wasn’t any of my _Mukudori_ crewmates, even before I opened my eyes.

Sound snapped into being around me, the contrast from what seemed like nothing to a sharp cacophony of chaos so jarring that I felt my whole world was tilting around me. I blinked in dumb, exhausted confusion as I was hauled to my feet, but it wasn’t just me this time. Throughout the room, there were a buncha pirates, hauling kids up. Despite the hysteria, some of them were such light sleepers that they didn’t even stir as they were moved. Adalia tried to scream, and a hand covered her mouth so it came out more like a pathetic muffled cry. All of a sudden, I understood how people could be snatched from darkness, with nobody around them any the wiser; the clump of boots thundering around the room made more noise than Adalia’s terror.

“Hey!” I protested weakly, and the grip on my arm tightened so much I felt my vision momentarily white out. Stupid, stupid, Evan; you can’t protect them, I thought you’d already come to terms with this? Common sense, self-preservation, cowardice, you call it what you want, but by the time that thought had occurred to me I decided I was powerless. Maybe if I hadn’t been snatched from sleep, maybe if I’d actually got some rest, maybe if I hadn’t let him get such a tight grip on my arm, maybe, maybe… (Maybe maybes were just pointless things kids told themselves to feel better.)

Having given up on any half-baked rescue plan, I stared around the room instead. In the middle of all the confusion and chaos lay a body. Their face was turned downward, so I couldn’t make out their features, but I didn’t need to; that body was the most familiar to me of all of them in our little, cramped accommodation. (Prison.) For a moment the room swam in my vision again, and this time I knew that it wasn’t because of the ship. My stomach heaved, but it was empty. It’s not like Shane, I kept telling myself, there was no blood. But I couldn’t see his chest rise and fall. Jos, who was one of the lightest sleepers in this room, who’d been trying to fade into the background but whose eyes had persistently watched everything in this room; I’d even felt his laser-pointed stare on me as I’d tried to shut out the sobering reality. Jos, who was being totally ignored and untwitching in a room full of action. “Jos!”

“Shut up,” said the pirate, and clipped me round the face. He didn’t turn toward Jos. He probably didn’t even know who that was. Or what.

Determined to try and do something, I reached out and tried to grab for him as I was half dragged, half carried towards the room’s exit hatch. I’d gladly pay for it later, if only I could know that he was alright. I missed by inches, but it felt like each step further away were leaps, and all I could think was that I’d sat there oblivious and let him die. (And you once thought you were some kinda hotshot, Evan? This, right here, that you can’t look away from? This is reality. This is-

the past.)

So even though that knowing look bothers me, I keep my trap shut. Jos don’t know what memory buzzes round my brain, but I don’t really want to tell him either. Seeing him there, alive, is enough. That “dead” body of his will always remain my little secret.

* * *

I thought I was hallucinating when I saw him from beyond the bars in that brig. I don’t know what made me look. One minute we’d been dragged into a cell (again, you’d think I’d have been desensitised to it after all my experience, but I was an adult by then and no innocent child act would fool anybody. Although anybody believing any child from a pirate could truly be described as innocent would have been a fool), the next I’d shoved myself into a corner, cold and sweating, and _looked_. Over the years, I’d learned how to survive: look after yourself, always keep your eyes open for any opportunity, learn to spot who is dangerous and don’t ever take your eyes off them, know which people to keep your head down around, and who to ingratiate. As the jets streamed through, I eyed those walking with a particular kinda unconcerned, deadly grace that you only learn to spot through prolonged contact with killers.

And then there was Jos. So pale and expressionless that he looked like a ghost, but I recognised him instantly. Had I died back on _Shiva_? Did I hate myself so much that I’d dreamed up my own torture, a ruthless brig with companions I despised and haunted by a remnant of my past that I’d always regretted not being able to save?

But I knew. I knew. I’d heard that Jos mighta been alive, although I found that I didn’t truly believe it until that moment. I’d always kept my head down, and though I’d learned how to ensure my own survival, _Shiva_ meant nothing to me. I’d been bought, like a possession, and treated as such, but it did have its advantages: sometimes I was as meaningless as the furniture in the room to the rank and file crew, although the brass weren’t stupid and said little to me that wasn’t what we both knew were simply untrue platitudes or the bark of orders, and both of those were as bad as the other.

So when I heard of Falcone’s protege, it meant nothing to me. When I heard his previous protege had run, I confess to a little jealousy. And when I heard the name Musey… well, it just couldn’t be true. (Besides, kidnapped by strits? I couldn’t bring myself to stop mourning him then begin anew, since when had that ever gone well, especially after my own Slavepoint experience?)

Yet here he was, alive and relatively unscathed. My mouth moved on its own to call his name. My body trembled. My “crewmates” (my _captors)_ were staring now, and determination filled me. I don’t know what I wanted, or expected. Just recognition in his eyes. And I saw it. I saw it. We stared across time, and I begged. I’d never begged before, but I couldn’t stand him looking at me as if I were a pirate. An enemy. Or a victim. I don’t know which was worse.

(Damnit, Jos. How _dare_ you stand there and judge me?)

I thought I’d shut away any feelings of my past, accepted my lot in life while always hoping I could engineer a situation where I’d be free, but knowing it would never come. Seeing him again awoke the me behind the fake smiles and entertainment, behind the mirroring I’d learned to do to follow the moods of _Shiva’s_ crew, behind the caring without caring. Suddenly, my emotions had awoken and I _felt_ with such an intensity that it floored me. Happiness and relief and despair and desperation and blind panic all fought for dominance with frantic fragility.

Jos thinks I’m the way I am because of Shiva, but really it’s as much because of him, his loss and being found. He thinks I act like a pirate, sometimes, although he knows I hate them as much as he does. But he don’t understand that, now, I’m in control. I choose what I do, or don’t do. I choose who I meet, or don’t meet. That ain't being like a pirate: that’s regaining my life.

* * *

Survival above all else. That was how I’d lived my life for years, and it had kept me alive when hope and loyalty and feelings had fled in the wake of the reality of piracy.

I ain't a fool. I knew, from the moment I was removed from the brig, that I was still imprisoned, bars or no. Give a little, take a little. Cooperate, or the dreamlike bubble that had encased around me would burst, and drop me back into the reality of a more traditional cell with a thump. (More than a thump.)

But I didn’t have much to bargain with. I had little loyalty for those who had stolen my childhood and left me to carve out a future among the general disdain, while looking for a way out that I’d never be afforded, but I somehow doubted that the crew gossip that had drifted to my ears while I looked preoccupied would really cut it.

There was just one little piece of knowledge that I had that would make a difference. One thing that could change everything, that gave me a lucidity that everyone else on this ship lacked. An oddity whose presence on this ship made as little sense as my own. It would be so easy to say, to prove I could be useful, to ensure I’d never be made a prisoner of war again. It would be a currency to pay my way onto the ship, one which hopefully would never run out, when even my knowledge of Slavepoint and alliances seemed to fail.

After being on _Shiva_ for years, _Macedon_ ’s captain questioned my loyalty.

So did I.

My chance came unexpectedly. The hatch opened and I turned, expecting Jos, or, failing that, one of the armed guards that decorated my doorway to be gracing me with their presence. It was neither. A man stepped into the room, a picture of black that could be mistaken for a jet, but with an arrogance bred of confidence, not the swagger I’d expect from a jet. I had a sneaking suspicion who this was, even before the door guard said, “Sir!”

This was it. I’d actually pissed Jos off enough that he was gonna get me thrown outta a vent.

I scrambled to my feet, leveraging myself up the wall using my hands, trying to hide their shaking. I felt sapped of strength. I had just one opportunity to change my fate, and I hadn’t come this far to die, or end up shoved in some prison or half-way house. I could tell him about Jos and his wavering loyalties, and if he didn’t believe me, he’d at least investigate, right? I opened my mouth-

(I didn’t open my mouth. It didn’t cooperate.)

“You can sit,” he said, a kindness delivered in a complete monotone, with a face even blanker than Jos’s. It could have been carved from marble. Or maybe he just felt better, towering over his prisoners – see, see how powerless you are.

I sank down the wall. It wasn't entirely voluntary. My legs just gave up.

“You have nothing more to report.” It was a statement, not a question.

Sometimes a single second can feel like an eternity. Within that second, thoughts flashed through my head, phrases and pictures and memories, warring with that desperate need to survive, to make the captain need me, to ensure my presence was useful. I thought of _Shiva_ and the facade I’d had to uphold. I thought of Jos: the not-quite-jet in my room with no light in his eyes; the wary, watchful waif he’d become under Falcone’s ‘care’, merely a distorted reflection of the boy who’d laughed freely and begged for piggy back rides and my attention during a time I wasn’t supposed to remember. I thought, and I thought.

“No, sir.” My voice cracked.

The captain stared at my face for an unexpectedly long time while I tried to look innocent. Finally, a nod of dismissal followed, and he exited. The hatch closing echoed in the sudden silence, like a death knell. Or a reprieve.

Although I’d frequently threatened him with it over those previously fraught days, I never did tell Jos that I’d seriously considered selling him out. Just for a moment, just for that second before sentiment interfered. Even though deep down I knew that this ship held nothing for me if Jos wasn’t here, that despite his often infuriating interactions with me beforehand, that there was a bond that neither of us were fully willing to acknowledge, but that we both knew was there. It was more than loyalty, a wordless thing that neither of us quite understood.

* * *

Memories are curious things. They can be triggered by many things: a voice; a familiar face; the strange, ship-tilting deja vu that can appear out of nowhere and leave you wracking your brain for the uneasy feeling sat in your stomach. Sometimes it can be a slow sorta confusion that gradually dawns on you, and sometimes it’s almost instantaneous. On Falcone’s ship, it was unfortunately the latter.

What was it that led me to pick up on it so quickly? Was it the décor, a room, a smell? A sound? Maybe those things brought a nagging sense of unease, but as we were dragged onto that ship, prisoners of a war that I’d been stuck in the middle of for so many years, it was none of those things. The jets around me wouldn’t let me die (probably); I was _Macedon_ crew, whether they liked it or not, and our fates belonged to the captain, but the one whose presence I could fully trust was Jos. Jos, whose face had paled to a degree that I hadn’t thought possible, and whose movements were filled with a sorta quiet desperation that I suspected nobody else could read. I’d trailed him through the attack on ship and he’d moved mechanically, but without any outward signs of fear, until we’d stepped on this ship. Then that demeanour had totally changed.

People thought I was stupid, but I knew how to read Jos. I knew there was only one thing that could cause that reaction, even before my own senses began to confirm the suspicion.

Then Falcone took him – of course he did, I’d always known how fixated he’d been on Jos, and his being “let go” had only deepened the obsession. Falcone had many, many faults, but his memory wasn’t one of them. I wondered if he’d recognise me, someone who’d been branded as more useful as a payment than as a person, and felt a glimmer of fear, but I’d be far down the priority pile. And I wasn’t twelve any more.

I’d rather he’d've taken me. I was alone, with people who either didn’t know me or barely tolerated me for Jos’s sake, and I knew that the reunion going on would hardly be pleasant.

I also knew other things.

I’d been keeping Jos’s secrets for years. Maybe he thought he’d convinced me that everything I’d heard about him had been a lie, that his presence on this ship and that little rumour made so little sense that I’d just assume it was nonsense, but I don’t think even Jos was that wilfully blind. The Jos I was getting used to on _Macedon_ wasn't how he had been; he’d gone from being a boy who could be overly expressive and outgoing when excited to an insular shell, who liked to brood and keep his thoughts firmly buried with him. He did the same with his problems, I thought; if he didn’t mention them, didn’t acknowledge them at all, then they didn’t exist and they didn’t affect him. It clearly wasn’t a very effective strategy, but I knew my opinion wasn’t wanted and he disapproved of my own coping mechanics even more strongly, so I kept it to myself.

I could keep a secret, and nobody would know they even existed. Maybe people thought I’d talk because of how quickly I’d turned in the _Shiva_ crew, but turning in a crew who had _bought_ me and a friend were different things. (And if back then, even in the height of my desperation and hysteria and all of our mutual antagonism, I hadn’t turned Jos in, I was hardly going to do so at this point, so far removed from the event.) But suddenly I wasn’t the only person who knew.

Falcone knew, and he had a grudge. More than one – you didn’t have to be one of the top brass on _Shiva_ to understand that there was some serious bad blood between him and Captain Azarcon, and one of the uses of “undercover” pirates like _Shiva_ were to keep tabs on him on the quiet.

The jets paced. The jets swore. The jets glowered at the guards.

Dorr was like a caged animal, poking and prodding and provoking, hoping he could make those guards forget their place so much that they’d come within range of attack.

I huddled in the corner in silence, small and feeling smaller, like a child whose just witnessed all the people who he had relied on to keep him safe dying in front of him. Only this time, I had nobody to grab to make me feel better, nobody who I could try to protect to try and find my own sense of purpose. This time, I wasn’t facing a great unknown; I knew how pirates operated. I knew Falcone’s reputation and sense of hospitality.

Knowledge is power, and power in the hands of someone so sadistic is a dangerous game.

When Jos returned, bruised and battered and broken, I didn’t need to ask what had happened. I saw it reflected in his eyes. But he wasn’t alone. He had me, I was here, and -

(-so was Falcone. In a very different way.)

I wanted to tell him:

Don’t worry about me. Stop protecting me. Here, on this ship, I protected you once, and I’d do it again. (And then, as he ignored my silent pleas and the truth spilled outta his mouth, as the noises from the jets around me grew less indignantly loyal and became more incredulously hostile, I thought: I don’t care. Symp or no symp, spy or no spy, you saved my life, and you are my home.)

There are some things you just don’t say, especially to somebody like Jos, because he’ll never acknowledge them. But perhaps some secrets don’t have to be said to be understood. As we’re rescued from that brig, from that bad memory, I cling to him in silent support, and that says more than I ever could.

* * *

There is a vastness to _Macedon_ that I’d never quite felt, with my introduction being via the brig and then held in such small quarters for so long. When I got the freedom to travel around the ship, I’d been cautious and under guard, and more interested in gravitating around Jos than anything else. In his vicinity, my pardon and his proximity were enough to keep me relatively unbothered.

With Jos gone back with the strits who’d been his saviours, I felt an emptiness gaping around me. The place where I’d felt so comfortable suddenly seemed so foreign all over again, because while I had no qualms with the ship, Jos’s absence left an empty chasm in its wake, so significant to me but so invisible to anybody else.

When we’d been left in the brig of that alien ship, before we’d been returned like naughty, wandering children, Dorr had got right in my face and said:

“Didja know?”

I coulda said nothing. He wouldn’t have known better anyway; the odds of me knowing anything were very slim, and I certainly didn’t have the whole picture. I’d made a promise to myself that I’d reveal nothing. But is it really spilling a secret when it’s not a secret anymore?

I tilted my head to look Dorr straight in the eye. I could feel my body shaking, but I hid my hands behind my back, as if hiding the evidence would make my facade of bravery become truth. “Yeah.”

For a moment, I thought he’d hit me.

For a moment, I wanted him to. I’d take a bruise to the face as a mark of loyalty, proudly displayed like the Warboy’s tattoos.

I watched his thoughts whir before seeing the moment he dismissed me as worthless, not even worth the effort to contemplate or cuff.

His disapproval had been like a signal. So there I’d stood, a pariah who’d only been recruited through the good word of a symp spy. I was, after all, the traitor that the traitor had recommended.

Falcone’s presence had infected the ship. I didn’t see him, I didn’t hear him, but just knowing he was there (and Jos was not) weighed me down with a breathless fear. I awaited his extradition with a fervour that bordered on madness, then it came and went with the swiftness of a blade soaring through the air, and finding its mark.

Falcone paying in blood finally seemed to legitimise Jos’s haemorrhage of words back in _Genghis Khan_ ’s brig, and he was back. He was _back,_ and the terror and nausea that had sat in my stomach was suddenly lifted as it though its existence had been a mere bad dream. I found my way to him like a homing beacon, and made a promise to myself that where he went, I would follow. Even to the other ends of the galaxy.

You can find a place to live anywhere, but there’s only ever one home.


End file.
